Anti-Abortion Action in Three States This Week

Lawmakers in two states -- Texas and N.C. -- and the Supreme Court in Illinois took action this week on abortion laws.

Lawmakers in two states and the Supreme Court in another took action this week on abortion laws.

Early Saturday morning the Texas Senate in a 19-11 vote passed sweeping legislation aimed at restricting when and how abortions are performed. Opponents of the legislation said it was a death knell for most abortion clinics in the state.

The bill outlaws abortions after 20 weeks and sets penalties for physicians who prescribe abortion-inducing drugs in certain situations.

The legislation also requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within at least 30 miles and mandates that abortions be done only at facilities that qualify as surgical centers. Just five of 42 existing abortion clinics in Texas meet those requirements, according to the Associated Press.

The House passed the bill handily Wednesday with a vote of 96-49 and the Senate is expected to do likewise. The bill is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry (R), who called a special legislative session to pass the bill after time ran out during a 10-plus-hour filibuster last month.

“There will be a lawsuit,” state Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) said on the Senate floor Friday, raising his right hand as if taking an oath. "I promise you."

The legislation was opposed by several medical groups.

"The Texas bills set a dangerous precedent of a legislature telling doctors how to practice medicine and how to care for individual patients," Hal Lawrence, III, MD, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists executive vice president, said in a statement.

The Texas Medical Association (TMA) doesn't have a position on abortion issues but opposes legislation that interferes with the physician-patient relationship, spokesman Brent Annear told MedPage Today.

"The bill as written could have a chilling effect on physicians using their best judgment within a conscientious patient-physician relationship with both the mother and the fetus," read TMA testimony on the bill. "The unintended consequences of the bill could risk the mother's future fertility or even her life."

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R), himself a Texas ob/gyn, could not be reached for comment when MedPage Today reached out to his Campaign for Liberty. "If he wants to say something, he will," a spokesperson said. "I doubt he will comment on something as decisive as this."

Meanwhile, the North Carolina House passed a bill Friday that requires doctors be present for an entire surgical abortion and when a patient takes the first dose of medication for a chemically induced abortion. The bill, which passed in a 74-41 vote, also requires abortion clinics to be regulated more like outpatient surgical centers.

The House language was changed after Republican Gov. Pat McCrory threatened to veto the version the state Senate approved last week. He hasn't voiced an opinion about the House measure, which now must be passed again in the Senate before heading to the governor's desk for veto or being signed into law.

And on Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the state can enforce a 1995 law requiring physicians to notify the parents of a minor at least 2 days before the procedure if their child is undergoing an abortion.

The law, the Parental Notice of Abortion Act, has been under challenge since its passage in 1995. The court said the Illinois constitution doesn't provide a right to an abortion.

"Although it may seem to be an academic point, then, to conclude, as I do, that the Illinois Constitution does not contain a right to abortion, it is our solemn obligation to discern and effectuate the true intent of the drafters of our state constitution on this matter," Justice Anne Burke wrote in the court's majority opinion.

The Illinois State Medical Society didn't release a statement on the ruling.

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